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Perception and Judgment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 June 2010

Paul Rowntree Clifford
Paul Rowntree Clifford
Affiliation:
McMaster University
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Extract

Is Perception a form of judgment? The importance of this question is that it brings to the fore a crucial issue for modern perceptionempiricism. If perception is not a form ofjudgment, it is possible o t maintain, though still with considerable difficulty, that the senses acquaint us directly with the physical world and that a metaphysical account of reality can be excluded without undermining what the ordinary layman and the scientist alike claim to know. Judgment can then be discussed from the linguistic standpoint without raising any serious ontological questions. If, on the other hand, perception is judgment, or if in perceiving we inevitably go beyond that which is presented to the senses, then metaphysics is unavoidable unless we are prepared to abandon the hope of knowing anything at all.

Type
Articles
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 2 , Issue 1 , June 1963 , pp. 65 - 74
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1963

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References

1 Hirst, R. J., The Problems of Perception (London: Allen and Unwin, 1959), pp. 219–245Google Scholar, and Blanshard, Brand, The Nature of Thought (London: Allen and Unwin, 1939), I, 78–120Google Scholar.

2 Hirst, op. cit., p. 232.

3 Price, H. H., Perception (London: Methuen, 1950), p. 142.Google Scholar

4 Campbell, C. A., On Selfhood and Godhood (London: Allen and Unwin, 1957), pp. 42f.Google Scholar

5 Blanshard, op. cit., p. 81.

6 Hirst, op. cit., p. 226. This admission appears to give away his major thesis that perception is to be equated with sentience.

7 Stout, G. F., God and Nature (Cambridge University Press, 1952), pp. 275f.Google Scholar

8 Campbell, op. cit., p. 56.

9 Ibid., p. 70.

10 Smith, Norman Kemp, Prolegomena to an Idealist Theory of Knowledge (London: Macmillan, 1924), pp. 13 and 32f.Google Scholar

11 Temple, William, Nature, Man and God (London: Macmillan, 1934), p. 128. The whole of the chapter on “The World as Apprehended” is a development of this theme.Google Scholar

12 Polanyi, Michael, “Faith and Reason”, Journal of Religion, XLI (10, 1961), 237–247CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and “Knowing and Being”, Mind, LXX (10, 1961), 458–470CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 Polanyi, “Faith and Reason”, p. 243.

14 Kemp Smith, op. cit., pp. 64f.

15 Ibid., pp. I78ff.

16 Knox, T. M., “Two Conceptions of Philosophy”, Philosophy, XXXVI (10, 1961), p. 296.Google Scholar

17 Ryle, Gilbert, The Concept of Mind (London: Hutchinson, 1949), pp. 280 ff.Google Scholar

18 Ibid., p. 297.

18 Ibid., p. 301.

20 Ayer, A. J., The Problem of Knowledge (London: Macmillan, 1958), p. 241.Google Scholar